Friday, February 3, 2012

Cleaning your head...

After writing about the rather tame in comparison nitrous oxide, I thought I’d put down my thoughts on huffing “poppers” (video head cleaner/amyl nitrate).

IT’S FUCKING INSANE!!!

But seriously, it’s really stupid and if you’ve ever smelled this stuff, you understand why. Amyl Nitrate smells like someone took ammonia, combined it with rubber cement and paint thinner, and then left it to ferment in the sun for a year. I don’t care how good it makes you feel, the smell alone should tell you that it’s doing something terrible to your body.

Since I had never heard of them before I started working here, perhaps I should explain poppers for the uninitiated. Poppers are a small bottle of liquid that people inhale for a temporary state of euphoria and disassociation. It came into popularity among homosexuals in discos during the late 70s and has sense become popular throughout the adult entertainment and dance cultures. It was originally developed to treat angina (chest pain) and Hunter S. Thompson discusses its recreational use in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Today it’s marketed as liquid incense or video head cleaner with names like Rush, Quick Silver and Locker Room (remember I mentioned that they were popular in the gay community?) The problem is that since it’s not officially created for human consumption, there are no regulations dictating what is actually put into these products. Amyl nitrate is now a regulated substance that is only available with a physician’s prescription. So what you’re actually inhaling could be anything from butyl nitrate (same effect at amyl nitrate with more risk of stroke) to good old fashioned ether (remember what killed the doctor in the Cider House Rules?)

Strangely enough, this stuff is a very effective video head cleaner, provided you want to open up your VCR and clean its head directly. Since there are 30 VCRs constantly running that supply the video booths with a constant stream of fresh porn, we frequently have to utilize this horrid liquid to keep the VCRs running. Bill, surprise, was the one who taught me how to clean a VCR head with a bottle of rush and a paper towel. It’s a simple matter of taking the top off the VCR, applying the cleaner liberally to your paper towel and spinning the video head manually a few turns until it wipes clean.

Simple and easy yes, but it’s just as easy to give yourself an unintentional rush while cleaning the VCR head. So far, this has happened to me twice and the pounding heartbeats in my head combined with the feeling that the building was about fall down on top of me had taught me that this isn’t a pleasurable recreational drug. I suppose it could be fun to use while at a dance club is already pounding your head with thumping beats or perhaps when you’re about to ejaculate, but I’ll leave those experiences to more daring individuals.

Poppers evaporate incredibly quickly and are one of the (many) reasons the video booth room is so well ventilated. Because of this awesome ventilation, I never smell them when people are utilizing the product while masturbating in the booths. Overall, I don’t mind selling the bottles. The only inconvenience is that I often have to sweep up empty bottles during the cleaning portion of my shift.

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